Business leaders and US officials 'targets' of al-Qaida

Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al-Qaeda cleric operating from Yemen who had become one of the organization's most effective English-language propagandists, released a new video calling explicitly for attacks on American business leaders and government officials — an escalation in rhetoric that U.S. counterterrorism officials said warranted serious attention.

The video, distributed through al-Qaeda's media networks and widely circulated online, represented a tactical shift in al-Awlaki's messaging. Where earlier communications had focused on broad exhortations to attack American targets generally, this message named categories of high-value targets: executives of major corporations, officials in the Obama administration, and military leaders. The framing drew on al-Qaeda's narrative that America's corporate and political elites bear particular responsibility for Muslim suffering worldwide.

Security agencies in the United States and allied countries responded by intensifying threat assessments for named categories of potential targets. Private security consultants reported increased inquiries from corporate clients seeking advice on elevated threat environments.

Al-Awlaki's particular effectiveness as a propagandist derived from his fluency in American culture. Unlike al-Qaeda leaders who addressed Western audiences through translators, al-Awlaki could craft messages that resonated with Muslims raised in the United States and Europe — individuals who understood American life from the inside and were thus potentially capable of the kind of insider attack that external operatives could not execute.

He would be killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen later in 2011, a targeted killing that itself generated significant legal and constitutional controversy regarding the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen.